


heavy is the head

by spookykingdomstarlight



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Issues, Kissing, M/M, Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Thor Has Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2019-02-04 12:41:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12771300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookykingdomstarlight/pseuds/spookykingdomstarlight
Summary: Perhaps due to Thor’s inability to smile, Loki picked up the slack, giving to Thor an incandescent grin that outshone the brightest star Thor could see outside the ship. Stepping closer, he crossed his arms and bowed his head slightly. “Perhaps I had been unjust to you,” he said, impish, “now that I’ve seen how true vanity expresses itself in you.”





	heavy is the head

Thor’s reflection caught constantly on the shielded glass that lined one wall of what many had taken to calling the throne room, surprising Thor every single time with how little like himself he looked. He still imagined himself as the long-haired hero of Asgard and Midgard, an Avenger and a son of Odin. Now he was none of those things. Hair shorn, eye lost, throne his. Everything had changed and he’d wanted no part of it from the start. His father was dead. His home, overrun by a rampaging monster, like that creature Jane had once shown him on the television. Godzilla was the name, maybe, though his recollection of the details was hazy. At the time, he’d been rather more infatuated with her—and the way she’d sat, rapt, as they watched the movie, a strange thing recorded in monochrome and spoken in a language that Jane did not know.

She’d said it had been filmed many years ago when he’d asked about its provenance, but when she’d told him it was only sixty years old, he hadn’t been so very impressed. There were Asgardian plays still performed that predated Thor’s birth. Sixty years was nothing. Hardly the blink of an eye. And yet, so much could change within the span of moments, too.

When they got to Earth, he’d have to ask her how humans dealt with such rapid changes. Assuming she’d even want to see him. Maybe Banner would know, though he had yet to return to his human form so that Thor might ask. The Hulk, for whatever reason, very much enjoyed remaining in that guise, even here on this ship, where it was no doubt uncomfortable for him to move around. Thor did what he could to make the trip more pleasant for him—not least of all because the less angry he was, the less likely it would be that he’d destroy something vital on the ship—but who knew how long it would be before something set the Hulk off.

“What do you contemplate so seriously?” Loki said, materializing from who knew where, practically melting out of the walls for all Thor knew. His boots sounded against the floor, so hollow compared to the halls of the palace back home. He could be silent when he wanted to be, still and stealthy; Thor had no idea how long he’d been there, watching him, _contemplating him_ in turn. Perhaps he’d always been there. He peered over Thor’s shoulder as best he could, eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Your visage is indeed worth some consideration, but I worry that you might become vain in response.”

A smile tried to pull at the corner of his mouth. But the brunt of the weight he now bore did a considerable job undermining any joy he might have felt at Loki’s jabs. “Have I not always been vain?” he asked. “I believe you’ve accused me of that very flaw on a number of occasions.”

Perhaps due to Thor’s inability to smile, Loki picked up the slack, giving to Thor an incandescent grin that outshone the brightest star Thor could see outside the ship. Stepping closer, he crossed his arms and bowed his head slightly. “Perhaps I had been unjust to you,” he said, impish, “now that I’ve seen how true vanity expresses itself in you.”

So much of Thor wished that was all it was. Vanity would be preferable to the melancholy that clung to him and dogged his steps from morning—or what constituted morning on a ship as it traveled through the infinite darkness—and night. Every moment of every day he grew more distant from himself. The further they traveled from Asgard, the more he felt it. It was like a repelling force that somehow managed to grow more strong the further Thor retreated from it.

And there was nothing he could do to change a thing about it. He couldn’t go home. He couldn’t bring his father back. He couldn’t pretend Asgard was the shining place he once knew it to be.

“The crown weighs heavily on you,” Loki said when Thor didn’t answer him. He spoke with a knowing that Thor wasn’t sure he truly possessed. Asgard under Loki’s reign saw a terrifying increase in the number of plays that centered on Loki’s demise, but he didn’t face the same trials Odin had. Thor’s own didn’t match exactly. He hadn’t been king when Thor had decided to destroy Asgard and he hadn’t even been king when Asgard was overtaken by Hela’s forces. What did he know of crowns and their weight? Truly, there was not much that either of them needed to concern themselves with beyond getting them all to Earth. It was then when the trouble would begin, Thor was sure. From what he knew about humans, they wouldn’t be pleased with a ship suddenly parking itself above head and asking for refuge. And in the end, Thor was the one who would be called to task for his people.

“You mistake rational concerns then for a mantle I do not wear,” he replied. “You see no crown upon my head.”

Loki stepped closer to him, laid his hand on Thor’s arm before letting it drop to brace against Thor’s knuckles. Loki’s palm was cool and dry as always and Thor wanted nothing more than to turn his wrist just so and take that hand in his. “Metaphorical though the crown may be,” Loki said, eyes drifting up to the top of Thor’s head, “I can see its effects clearly enough. You may speak with me, you know. I will not betray your confidences.”

With a sigh, Thor turned away, paced toward the chair that he did not want and stepped past it. He wanted that to be true, so he believed it to be true, and it was that easy now. Of late, Loki had done little to suggest he wasn’t trustworthy—and Thor now knew what to look for, could anticipate Loki’s moves before he made them. There was a certain predictability in Loki’s unpredictability, something Thor could count on despite everything that existed between them. And yet, the words would not unstick themselves from his throat. He could not give voice to the thing that bothered him above all others.

He wasn’t sure he rightly knew himself.

All he could say was he didn’t like what he saw in the mirror.

“It was me you spoke with,” Loki ventured, “when you denied yourself the crown. You said you did not want to be king then. I don’t know that I’ve seen anything to suggest you’ve changed your opinion on that front.” As when they were younger, Loki trailed after Thor, perfectly following Thor in his wake. He did so before on stunted legs, with a shout of annoyance, a desire to not be left behind in the desperate quality of his voice. It was different today. Now, he did so with ease and of his own choosing. It pleased Thor to see it. In fact, it didn’t seem to bother him at all that he yet followed Thor and that pleased Thor, too.

Whatever existed inside of Loki that made him resent Thor so… it had abated somewhere along the way. And Thor, who’d made it his object to know Loki’s mind after being caught so fully by surprise at what Loki was capable of so many times, hadn’t seen where the change had occurred. It remained a mystery to Thor, the one thing he was glad for. Loki should always have a mystery, just as Thor should always call down storms.

Perhaps he’d excised his demons with the destruction of Asgard, with the death of their father, by being presented with a sibling who’d been even more wronged by Odin than Loki was. Or perhaps Thor had failed yet again and he only saw what he wanted so desperately to see. There was no one left who knew him better than Loki, no one who mattered so dearly. The rest of the royal family was dead and their home, destroyed.

He had no one left but Loki.

It was a feeling he wouldn’t have wished on anyone and yet he suspected that Loki knew it intimately—even if it was not entirely true. A Jotun taken from his home and cast aside again and again for reasons he would not understand for many years to come? Thor wondered how alone that would make a person feel. He regretted never asking before and could not bring himself to ask now. It was, he imagined, much like this ache that had settled in Thor’s chest and would be pried free through no method Thor knew.

“Thor?”

Loki was now too close; something like hurt flickered in his eyes, sparking under the harsh lights of the ship, a lingering uncertainty left over from the past. His touch burned like heated steel against Thor’s skin. Thor did not dare turn away, but neither could he make the admission that Loki so wanted.

He wanted to. That ought to have counted for something.

But instead, he raised his hands and bracketed Loki’s cheeks with them. If he couldn’t tell Loki what was wrong, he could at the very least prove to him that it wasn’t his fault, that it wasn’t because he was Loki that Thor couldn’t manage the words. Though Loki leaned into the press of Thor’s fingers, his brows furrowed, too, like he knew it for the distraction it was and just chose not to care.

His skin, as ever, was softer than the callouses on Thor’s palm that would never quite go away, though their placement may yet change. He no longer carried the hammer that put them there, didn’t believe he’d ever remake it. Even if there was someone left who knew how, he didn’t feel it was right. He was no longer worthy of the power of Mjolnir.

His blades would have to do.

“I know what you’re doing,” Loki said, hushed as he tilted his head up, the angle perfect for Thor to bend down and press his lips against Loki’s mouth. Smiling just a little, sad, Thor said in response, “What am I doing?”

If it wasn’t fair, Loki didn’t fuss about it. And if it wasn’t what he wanted, he did a bad job of showing it, grabbing hold of Thor’s shoulders to pull him down again. He forced them together, as close as they would go, and wrapped his arms around Thor’s neck. Still, guilt nibbled away at him for the small deception. He didn’t want to use Loki as a distraction, but all he wanted in the world was to be distracted.

It was better than the alternative.

None of this would solve Thor’s problem and he didn’t have the audacity to believe it would, but just this closeness was enough to assuage the hole in Thor’s heart where Asgard yet lived. It filled the space where Thor’s doubts fumbled about, multiplied, and then drew down dark shades over the rest of him. Loki being here was enough to shed some light upon him and made his burdens easier to bear.

Loki traced the planes of Thor’s face, swept across his cheeks. When his fingertip brushed against the hard, cold line of Thor’s eye patch, Thor flinched away, causing Loki to immediately still—or almost immediately. Never one to pull his punches, he touched it again, more deliberate this time, though not ungently. “Does it hurt?” he asked, concerned.

“No,” Thor answered, gruff, tight. And that much was true. It didn’t hurt anymore. It hardly even twinged. Hela’s mark had left little of the pain he expected to feel having lost the eye. No, her lasting legacy would be much greater. He tilted his head away from Loki’s touch. His head shook in warning. This wasn’t something he wanted to talk about or even acknowledge and not because he’d been injured and Thor was never injured, never left permanently damaged by his battles, never left scarred or scared. “It’s fine.”

Loki reached for him again, his touch firmer this time. He offered Thor a warning of his own, a tutting noise and a click of his tongue. “Let me, please.”

“It’s nothing.” His heart scrabbled up his chest, planted itself in his throat, and refused to give up residence there. He almost couldn’t choke out his words. It was so _stupid._ His troubles were such that he had no reason to complain about this. It wasn’t like he’d lost everything the way some of his people had. He’d lost an eye. He’d lost his father. He’d lost the physical place that made up Asgard.

But he’d regained Loki’s presence at his side, a miracle by all accounts. He’d found a Valkyrie. The Hulk was with him. And there were many, many people who needed him to look out for them.

There were worse positions to be in.

And he was grateful. Truly. For what he had.

“It’s not nothing,” Loki answered, but with a sigh, he took a step back, hands on both hips. “If you don’t want to tell me, you’re not obligated to, of course.” His voice took on a melodious, melancholy quality. “I only want to help.”

Whether he’d done it on purpose or he still wasn’t used to Thor knowing exactly what he was doing, Thor knew this for the manipulation it was. In the past, it might have angered him, but sometimes he wasn’t even sure Loki noticed what he did. And in this case, Loki _was_ concerned. Thor could tell that much. He could have played into it or spoken around it, but he tired of Loki looking at him this way and it would only get worse. And at some point, Thor was sure he’d figure it out. Possibly even gloat about it when he did.

Laughing bitterly in the hopes of lightening the unhappiness in him at making the admission, he turned away. It wasn’t some grand secret regardless. “Ah,” he said, thoughtful, considering, “it truly is nothing.” His palm scrubbed over the back of his skull and neck. His hair, still too short, rasped under the touch. “I simply remind myself of father and I do not like it.”

If he pretended it mattered little, it would matter little. Wasn’t that what they said on Earth?

“Because of the eye patch?” Loki rounded on him, his brows drawn together, putting all the pieces together into the correct image. “I suppose there is a certain—” Then he stopped and swallowed and bridged what little distance there was between them in order to grab Thor by the front of his leather jerkin and pull him down to Loki’s level. Anger, brutal and fierce, painted his face in shades of red. “—but you are _not_ him, do you understand me?” He tapped his finger against the surface of the metal patch, making a _tink tink tink_ sound. Thor swatted Loki’s hand away, but couldn’t quite bite back the smile that threatened to form on his face. It was ridiculous and it solved nothing, but just hearing Loki say that meant a great deal to him. Whether it was true or not was another matter entirely—he saw much of Odin in him now, much more than he’d expected before he’d thought about it—but he appreciated that Loki would say so.

“I spent time as him,” Loki continued. Wildness sparkled in his eyes, so wide and blue that Thor had a hard time looking at them. They gave away everything, Thor knew now. How had he never known before? “I knew him inside and out. You’re not him. You never were. You’re better than he was.” Swallowing, he looked away. “Even when I hated you, I knew that. In a way, that made me hate you more.”

Thor’s brow arched at that. He hadn’t given much thought to Loki’s feelings in the past; that was still too painful a wound to broach. Instead, he glossed over it, imagined it was not nearly so bad as it had been. Some days, he even believed that. “I don’t think father would have commissioned plays about us, Loki.” It was a reasonable thing to say and yet Loki only grabbed hold of him more tightly.

Loki huffed, but as he’d derailed more than his fair share of conversations with sarcasm, he couldn’t exactly tell Thor to knock it off. “This is truly what bothers you? Father?” He scoffed and said the name with so much disdain that it took Thor aback to still hear so much of it in his voice.

“Sometimes,” he answered, defensive. “I cannot help it, Loki. I am his son. He raised me to be the man I am.” But though he said the words, he wanted to believe in what Loki told him. Whatever else he’d been in the past, he’d changed. And he could change again if necessary. But perhaps it wasn’t so. Perhaps he could simply be the man he’d become, that had reached this point, who shared what he did here with Loki and his people. That man was one that he’d been proud of once upon a time, before he’d even heard of Hela and what their father had done to her, what they, together, had done to the Nine Realms.

He would like to be proud of that man again.

Looking at Loki, he wanted to be. More than anything, he wanted that.

Curling his finger beneath Loki’s chin, he bent as close to him as he could without going the entire distance to kiss him again. There would be time for that in a moment if he wished it. Now, there was something more important to accomplish. “Thank you,” he said, aware of the hitch in his own voice and not even bothering with trying to hide it. What was the point when Loki would be able to tell anyway?

“You could have the eye replaced,” Loki suggested. “It isn’t as though we are completely without resources.”

Thor considered it for a moment. “Nah,” he finally said, a habit he might have picked up from Tony or maybe had picked up from Steve. “It can serve as a reminder of what I don’t want to be.”

Loki’s lips thinned, but he said nothing, a surprising gesture for one who always had something to say.

So Thor spoke instead. “Thank you,” he said again. _For supporting me,_ he thought. _For not seeing me as you might see Odin_. ”Thank you for being here with me.”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Loki answered.

That, it turned out, was more than enough for Thor. For the time being, it was the only thing he needed.


End file.
